Do your parents understand how much harder getting on the property ladder is today?

[formicha]

For some reason, my mum just cannot and possibly will not understand how much harder it is to get on the property ladder today.

Her two grandchildren are struggling to save up enough of a deposit for a small flat. All she has to add is that maybe the girls shouldn't go on a summer holiday and back when she bought one house, interest rates were 15%.

When I point out that her and dad would only be able to afford a two bed flat, maximum, if they were buying today, she doesn't believe me! She still lives in the 5 bed detached that they bought in the early 70s.

Some do.

We buy second hand everything. Because I love a bargain and I'm right though. If we'd bought all new (kids clothes, for example) we'd be £10k worse off over the course of the last 5yrs. £2k a year makes no difference to being able to buy a house.

Neither would a holiday. We haven't been, but if we had, it wouldn't affect anything either.

It's about mortgage affordability.

As my 27 year old is still living at home as he can't afford to buy a house, I totally get it.
He is saving up and has a deposit but as he isn't in a serious relationship he'd be looking for a mortgage on a single income, which is his difficulty.
I do think that the younger generation like to treat themselves to things we'd have considered luxuries back in our day, but I think there's an element of "I can't get on the property ladder so may as well have a holiday/latest Iphone" or "if I get on the property ladder I'll be so poor that I won't be able to afford luxuries so may as well have them now" attitude.

We had very little when we bought our 1st house and also borrowed the maximum when we sold and bought our next house. Interest rates were indeed 15% at that point. So I don't think we had it easy at all.

Mine don't understand in the slightest and are about to vote Reform. It astounds me how right wing they're getting in their older age. I really hope I don't follow suit.

When my parents first moved in together they lived in a tiny bedsit with a shared bathroom. It was the 80s and they both came from areas of the country severely impacted by mine closures so while they probably could have lived with family cheaper they likely wouldn't have been able to find work there. Yes, they managed. But one of the fundamentals of parenting is, or should be, wanting better for your own kids. Who are these people who want their own adult children to be miserable just because they were?

Anyway my parents don't hate me so helped me and DH out, which we needed as - once again - in order to have jobs paying above minimum wage we had to rent in a different part of the country and therefore were prevented from significant savings by having to pay an enormous proportion of our income to private landlords. Some of whom may well be on this thread trying to protect their unearned income by justifying keeping younger people out of the housing market.

I think this is fair. I'm as irked by boomer privilege as the next person, but I also have huge admiration for my DParents' youthful make do and mend resourcefulness, orange boxes and all! I tried to channel that hippy era anti-consumerist spirit when I was saving up for my first house - albeit at 38 rather than 22, and in a foreign country where prices are more reasonable.

It’s a completely impossible situation if you don’t have parents who can give you a deposit

I've given my two early 20s sons a deposit, but they still can't get on the ladder because they earn under 30k so they don't pass the affordability checks to actually get a mortgage in the south west and they are both still single.

So they carry on saving and living at home for now..

True, plus the whole boomer moniker is ridiculous. At 62, I’m allegedly a boomer but buying property in the late 80s was a totally different ballgame from anyone who bought property in the 70s.

I think anyone caught by negative equity and endowment mortgages in the era of my youth would completely get what it’s like now.

Yep. I'm reporting them all now.

I'm in my mid 20s and I work in politics so I'm used to analysing polling etc. Young people answer polls not at the same rate as older people which imo skews where housing where housing scores on people's priorities and a lot of older millennials and gen-x who have bought name the cost of living as a priority but so much of that issue is linked to the housing crisis because house prices are astronomical so People have much higher mortgages as well as those stuck renting privately because of the lack of social housing.

Some older folk get it but most don't and I see that attitude so present on here.

On a London salary you probably could buy up north but most northerners also can't afford to buy up north because wages just don't match houses prices.

we young people should be able to enjoy life it can't be all about sacrifice that just isn't a life fulfilled depriving yourself of everything just for a house deposit.

At what point will we stop being blamed and people instead start blaming the government?

My personal imo is people like knowing they've got an expensive house and they know any policy in favour of solving the crisis is will impact their house price and people don't want to admit their selfish.

Not really. Some pps' parents are even older than boomers, and some younger posters might have parents my age (47) who bought houses for a song in the 90s. Anyone who bought a long time ago is at risk of getting out of touch if they don't keep up with current affairs or socialise outside their little homeowner bubble.

We ha e been told all we need to do is save our 50ps in a jar!

My mum couldn't understand that in a few months when we have a mortgage we will actually have more money. We are saving 2k a month plus rent! A mortgage will be less than that!

No, my parents bought in 1971. Their house cost £2k, my nana gave them £1k. So in their early 20s they had a mortgage on just 50%.

Mum especially used to go on at me for having nails done and spending money on treats like that. I said that as I had no hope and couldn’t see any way I’d ever be able to afford a deposit or property then I may as well spend my (vv low - less than £7 an hour) wages on something that gave me pleasure. This was 2011.

My circumstances now are different and I own mortgage free, but that is only because I met DH who already had a house which we sold on our redundancy and bought outright in a cheaper area.

My parents and grandmother know full well. My grandma and grandad lived in my great grandparent's front room for a couple of years when first married until they got their little council house. My grandma spoke about having net curtains so "folks couldn't see what you didn't have", as you had to sell furniture to pay for food. My parent did better and could buy a home a year or two after marriage but were both hard working people living modestly - no car, TV, holidays or meals out, furniture was always second hand, and clothes were often made on the sewing machine. We live to very different standards now, essentials now would have been luxuries then.

This. I think that a lot of people my age and older frustration is the assumption that we did not struggle to afford our houses when we bought. We did. We had different struggles - the15% interest rates crippled many people and led to so many families losing their home being one. I also know many people who were left in negative equity. Others were victims of crooks who took advantage of people wanting to buy their own homes and sold them false promises to get them a higher mortgage than they could afford.
Many older people never managed to get a mortgage and so remain in rented accommodation into retirement. My parents included.
For most people buying a house is, and always has been, difficult. The difficulties may be different now, but it wasn't easy for us or our parents either.

The OP asked a question, which isn't ageist in itself.

My boomer parents who bought in 79 do NOT understand that things are harder now. Of course I know that others have more insight than this. My mum says it was harder for them on 15% interest, which I appreciate must have been difficult. But she doesn't accept that things are hard at all now, even though she saw how much we struggled to get a mortgage on two wages.

She started working when I was a teen, at which point my dad was so offended that people might think he couldn't support a family on his own that he refused to take any of her salary into the family pot. She still boasts about how much she has today (fair enough, she worked for it).

But the second I graduated (and couldn't get a graduate job, and worked in a bookshop in London on 9k) they wanted to know when I was going to buy a house. Never accepted that it just wasn't possible at the time.

But my point is that you can buy a 2 bed terrace here for £140k so anyone from my town on average wages can afford to have what we had. We did it up ourselves, made a £5k profit and bought an almost derelict 3 bed semi for £18k and we are still there. It's worth about £250k now.
I appreciate that prices round here are probably half what they are here in the south, but they were in 1982 too and my London colleagues were complaining about it then.
We didn't go to Uni, my parents couldn't afford it. They were still paying their mortgage from 1965 and we didn't live for free either; me and DH both had to tip up a quarter of our wages for board.
We rarely had holidays, any spare money went on projects on the house and we often had to use almost maxed out credit cards for emergencies. I was 35 before we could afford a maternity leave when DH got a better job, but we could only afford to do it once.
We are comfortable now and have been able to retire early thanks to decent pensions and the changes to pension legislation (something I never thought we'd be able to do) but we've used a big chunk of them to buy one of those cheap houses for DS.😉

This. I think that a lot of people my age and older frustration is the assumption that we did not struggle to afford our houses when we bought. We did. We had different struggles - the15% interest rates crippled many people and led to so many families losing their home being one. I also know many people who were left in negative equity.

Saying it’s harder today doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard in the past.

Everyone forgets MIRAS

An interest of 6% on a high amount is not dissimilar to the double figure % of the past.

I always chuckle at the comments from older folk about young folk spending on coffee etc. in their day it was the same, but the money went on fags, newspapers, teletext holidays, consumer goods on tick, and booze in the pub (when pubs were everywhere and basically the only place to go). I'd happily have paid 15% on a mortgage of £25k for a ten bedroom house in a posh part of town. (All said tongue in cheek).

Well I have children in their twenties and I am perfectly able to understand that rent
and house prices are astronomical. My dad is eighty and also perfectly able to understand. We both sympathise and we both wish fervently that house prices would go down and wee help a much as we can. I would say the same for all my friends .
Some of these posts are ridiculously patronising and ageist .All these old folk that know nothing and couldn't care less. They must have been living for decades with their head under a rock if all these comments are to be believed.

But my point is that you can buy a 2 bed terrace here for £140k so anyone from my town on average wages can afford to have what we had. We did it up ourselves, made a £5k profit and bought an almost derelict 3 bed semi for £18k and we are still there. It's worth about £250k now.

its unusual to have 140k houses with 35k salaries. And a lot of people can’t live at home for free or low rent so paying high rent makes saving for a deposit hard.

My DM and MIL completely understand. But it did take them a while to grasp that it wasn't just young people eating too many avocados.

My FIL never got it.

I always chuckle at the comments from older folk about young folk spending on coffee etc. in their day it was the same, but the money went on fags, newspapers, teletext holidays, consumer goods on tick, and booze in the pub (when pubs were everywhere and basically the only place to go).

Young people have less disposable income than previous generations due to housing costs so they aren’t all spending it on coffees.

This has more to do with the fact your Mum is dumb and nothing to do with her age.

HTH.

Boomers. The only game that is never out of season.

I mean, this is it essentially.